


The Beginning of Wisdom

by procrastin8or951



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Dean, Sick Dean Winchester, spoilers for s9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 07:49:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3888220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastin8or951/pseuds/procrastin8or951





	The Beginning of Wisdom

The beauty of law is that it is math in the form of language.

Sam had always been good at language. He read constantly throughout school, classic words overlaying long stretches of two lane highways, circled in the filament-bright patch of a flashlight beam where he lay against the rough-worn sheets of a motel. It was tales of all the things he wanted to be – a person who learned and grew, who experienced the world and thought deeply about it. It was never ghouls or ghosts or backseat sutures with his brother’s blood sticking the pages together, not anymore.

Math was a little different. For as long as he could remember, math was in Dean’s voice _c’mon Sammy, thirteen times sixteen, real quick._ It was in Dean’s handwriting, a crooked little integral sign on the back of a gas station receipt, triangles and cosine and derivatives in the frost on the windshield of the Impala.

Sam had wanted to major in math. But he dropped differential equations after the first day of writing equations on college-ruled notebook paper, no classic rock or loud chewing or obnoxious joking making him work to concentrate.

Law was just like math, though. It was _**if**_ and _**then**_ and _**because,**_ it was logical and if there was anything Dean wasn’t, it was lawful. Law was the kind of math Sam had always done, quantifying the world like if he kept all the figures in their columns, they would be safe for the night.

_**Dad = 15 years of grief + 3 shots of whiskey + 2 guns multiply by X number of nights sleep missed** _

_**Dean = 35 years of earth + enough whiskey to almost die + guilt divided by 40 years in Hell** _

Sam has always quantified the world. And it’s only when the numbers get bad that he realizes just how much he fucked up.

-SPN-

Dean hadn’t said a word to Sam in three days. Even when he found a case, instead of a “hey, look at this,” Sam got no-subject email with nothing in the body but a link to a news article, and when he looked up from reading, Dean was standing there keys in hand. Sam looked back at the email and did a little math.

_**Length of time Dean has been out of junior high = 21 years of earth + 1 year Purgatory + 40 years in Hell** _

_**Length of time Dean has had more maturity than an eighth grader = ~0** _

But Sam had the last word in their argument. So he was winning, obviously.

_**Length of time Sam has ignored Dean > Length of time Dean hasn’t spoken to Sam ** _

They drove all the way to South Dakota without a word. Dean listened to the same album 17 times in a row, swear to God, and when he went to push the tape in for number 18, Sam slapped his hand away, snatched the tape and snapped, “Fuck you, we are not listening to that again.”

Dean tried to scowl but his eyes lit up in this hopeful way, like Sam was going to forget that Dean tricked him, lied to him, that Kevin was dead and Dean had that glowing red mark on his arm just because Dean had succeeded in annoying the crap out of him.

_**Tricked + lied to + dead friend + catastrophically bad idea + fucking sick of Metallica’s Black ≠ Sam forgives Dean** _

Sam guessed Dean wasn’t that good at math. He turned away, and pretended he didn’t see the smile vanish from Dean’s face the way the light had vanished from Kevin’s eyes.

-SPN-

It was just a simple salt and burn. Sam talked to one person, who gave them the name of the ghost within two sentences, and Dean had looked up the obituary on his phone within a minute. The cemetery was nice, the gravestone clearly marked, and if not for the pouring rain, it might’ve been a nice night for digging. Or it would have been, if Sam wasn’t furious and Dean wasn’t making this weird noise periodically, swallowing hard like he didn’t want to cry, and if the rain hadn’t been running down his collar in freezing rivulets.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sam finally asked, because that sound was just really annoying, and really fucking weird. Dean didn’t cry like that, and he certainly shouldn’t be about to cry just because Sam had snapped at him.

Dean started to shake his head and then froze, swallowed again, and muttered “nothing.” So Sam snorted and kept digging because wading through his brother’s angst was more than he could handle today.

Sam’s shovel broke through the coffin after just a couple more minutes. He heard a weird gasping noise behind him as he smashed through the rest of the boards, but no shotgun report so it was probably nothing. He clambered out of the hole, Dean right behind him, and set in on pouring the gasoline.

The ghost appeared just as Sam reached for the lighter. Dean had the shotgun ready, pulled the trigger, with a crack like the world breaking in two, and Sam dropped the lit flame into the grave, the satisfying rush of fire and the blood-curdling shriek of the ghost almost covering up the sound of his brother’s retching.

Almost.

Dean was on his knees, turned away from the crave, one arm holding him up and the other wrapped around his stomach, losing his minimal lunch and his nonexistent dinner.

**Weird choking noise ≠ crying**

**Weird noise + not eating + not moving his head = migraine**

Well, fuck.

-SPN-

Sam hauled Dean back to the car, because Dean had his eyes screwed up tight and his hand to his head, kept tripping over stuff and falling down more than a drunk toddler. Sam was sick of this, sick of the fucking rain, sick of graveyard mud and noisy ghosts and hunting and brothers who lied.

He shoved Dean into the passenger seat, narrowly missing knocking his brother’s head on the top of the car, and then slammed the door none too gently. He pretended he hadn’t heard the whimper, didn’t see Dean curl away from the sound.

Sam stopped twice on the way to the nearest motel to let Dean lean out of the car door to throw up on oil-slicked puddles. The motion of the car had always made Dean sick when he had a migraine. Sam remembered their dad stopping every few miles like this when they were kids, patting Dean on the back but eyes looking ahead, because there was always a hunt in the distance.

The motel room was tiny. The door slammed into the side of the closest bed when he opened it, so Sam maneuvered Dean through and to the side, shut the door and led him around the end of the first bed, past the less-than-a-foot gap between the beds, pushed him onto the foot of the far bed. He tugged at Dean’s soaked jacket until Dean rolled out of it, then did the same for his jeans. Dean blindly fumbled his way up the bed until he could slide under the covers, which he pulled tight around him, over his head.

“Sorry, Sammy,” he mumbled miserably as Sam moved around, pulling the blinds down against the glaring streetlight outside, drawing the curtains, pouring salt lines.  
**_If_ ** Dean is hurting _**then**_ Sam should do something _**because**_ Sam is a good person.

Except:

“Shut up and go to sleep,” Sam said, and it sounded meaner than he meant. There was a time, he thought, when he could’ve said those words and it would’ve meant that these things meant nothing, that Dean was a moron for even thinking to apologize because of course Sam was going to care for him, of course. Today it sounded like “I hate you for making me do this.”

_**Anger + sick brother + lack of forgiveness = Sam is a dick sometimes** _

Sam made a quick trip outside to grab their stuff, then stripped off his own soggy clothes. He filled a glass of water and set it on the nightstand. Dean flinched at the sound and drew his blankets tighter.

“Dean, hey,” Sam said softly, putting his hand on what he estimated to be his brother’s shoulder. “I’ve got drugs, how about you take some?”

The blankets rustled but nothing else happened, which meant Dean had shaken his head no. So Sam set the pills by the glass of water, set the trash can on the floor next to the bed and climbed into his own bed with the laptop.

Dean trembled and shivered his way through three days, barely moving except to make a trips to the bathroom or blink blearily at Sam.

Sam spends those three days watching his brother from a distance, wondering how it is that Dean could lie and deceive and let someone else take over Sam’s body, but Sam could somehow feel that he owed his brother more than this.

-SPN-

After three days, Dean crawled out of bed, looking about ten pounds lighter and ten years older. He blinked at Sam for a couple seconds like he wanted to say something, then headed for the bathroom without a word. When Sam heard the shower turn on, he started to pack.

They stopped for Sam to get breakfast, because Dean was never hungry after a migraine, and then they drove back to the bunker. Dean didn’t repeat a single album, didn’t say a single word, and didn’t look at his brother once.

_**Dean – annoying = ERROR** _

And that was how Sam knew he had fucked up.

-SPN-

It wasn’t that Dean got migraines often, but when he did, they came in groups.

It was another simple case, a nest of vampires up in Oregon. They passed the sign for the town, and Dean chuckled.

“I think this is where _Twilight_ was set,” Dean said, then waited a beat before “Idiotville.”

Sam rolled his eyes as Dean snickered at his own joke. They were speaking now, just barely. But really, it was only twenty percent because of Kevin’s demand. It was at least seventy-five percent because Sam was sort of tired of being a dick and didn’t quite have the energy to keep being mad. The other five percent was mostly because Dean kept moping around and doing sad, guilt-ridden things like not eating them out of house and home.

So they were speaking. Mostly about cases, but sometimes the occasional other thing. Music or videos or something ridiculous Cas said.

They didn’t talk about betrayal or lies or secrets or being brothers.

It was very possible that they belonged in Idiotville.

-SPN-

They stopped at a diner for lunch, somewhere Sam picked based on the free wifi rather than the menu. He was on the computer checking out maps of the town, looking for the most likely vampire hideout before the waitress even came over to ask about drinks. Distantly, he heard Dean say something to her, and she walked away. By the time the salad Dean had ordered for him showed up, he had four spots picked that he thought looked promising, so he spun the laptop around to let Dean look, focusing on wolfing down his food so they could go.

When Dean just said “okay,” no bitching about having to go to four places, on opposite sides of the town, nothing about taking all day or ‘gasoline doesn’t just fall out of the sky like rain,’ Sam looked up to study his brother.

Dean was milk-pale, hand trembling where he gripped his coffee, a few drops falling onto the tiny plate that held only a hardly-touched side of toast.

“You okay?”

Dean rolled his eyes, and then winced. “Don’t be such a fucking girl,” he muttered and gulped down the rest of the coffee. “You done with that bowl of yard clippings you call food?”

Sam rolled his eyes right back. “Like you’ve ever mowed a lawn. I bet you wouldn’t know what yard clippings were if they came to life and bit you.”

Dean made a sort of snorting noise but didn’t reply, just climbed out of the booth and threw a few bills on the table, leaving Sam to scramble to follow him.

_**Dean – sarcastic retort = something wrong** _

-SPN-

The nest was the fourth place they looked, and by then it was getting dark. Which meant that they mostly knew it was the spot because there were a half dozen vamps walking out and stretching, teeth glinting in the setting sun.

Sam glanced over at his brother, slouched low in the driver’s seat, staring at the vamps through dark sunglasses. “Get them in the morning?”

“Yeah? And how many people you think they’ll kill tonight?” Dean snapped. “Let’s just do it now.”

“Us and what army, Dean?” Sam retorted. “There’s at least six of them and they’ve got the upper hand in the dark!”

Sam watched his brother flinch at his volume, wondered why he suddenly had a hair-trigger when it came to his brother. He exhaled hard, loud, and Dean cringed again. “I just. I think we should wait.”

Dean didn’t say anything, but pulled himself up to sit straighter behind the wheel, pushed his sunglasses up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. He rubbed at one eye, turned the key in the ignition, and just barely louder than the roar of the engine muttered, “fine.”

They didn’t go to a motel though. Dean trailed the vampires to a local bar, then sat waiting in the car for a couple minutes while the vampires entered. At Sam’s questioning look he answered, “Look, we can wait til tomorrow or whatever, but I’m not letting some people die just because you want to call it an early night. We’re gonna keep an eye on ‘em, keep them from taking anyone, and if any of them tries, I’m gonna off ‘em tonight.” And he was out of the car, making his way across the parking lot before Sam could respond.

 _ **If**_ there was a hunt _**then**_ Sam and Dean got the fuck over it _**because**_ some things are more important.

-SPN-

“You know, that whiskey is only going to make it worse,” Sam said, sliding into the seat across from his brother and picking up the beer Dean had apparently ordered for him.

“Make what worse?” Dean said, looking over Sam’s shoulder at the vampires hanging out against the bar.

“That headache you think you’re hiding from me.”

Dean’s eyes snapped to Sam’s, and without breaking contact, he picked up his double whiskey and drained the rest of it. “Fuck you.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sam muttered, rolling his eyes. “I’m trying to help you. You get that, right?”

“Don’t need your help,” Dean muttered, signaling the bartender for another drink.

“Whatever. Don’t come to me when your head is exploding later.” Sam drained his beer and stood up, meaning to walk back to the motel and leave his brother there to sulk on his own.

“Not gonna come to you,” Dean said quietly. “Why would I? It’s not like we’re brothers or anything.” He knocked back the second drink like a shot, slamming the glass down on the bar almost hard enough to break, and stood up.

“Dean,” Sam started, but Dean cut him off.

“Fuck, Sam, they left. Did you see them leave? _Fuck.”_ Dean rubbed at one eye, blinking just the one, like he couldn’t see out of it, but turned to peer around the bar with the other. He stumbled a couple steps forward and Sam caught him by the shoulders,

“Dean. Dean!” Dean met his eyes, barely, one of his own still watering and blinking furiously. “Dean, can you do this right now? Be honest with me. Are you up for this?”

“Fuck off.” Dean pushed weakly at Sam’s hands. “We don’t have time for this, Sam. We have to go.”

And Sam let go. His hands dropped to his side and Dean listed like they had been holding him up, and then he pushed past Sam, led him outside. And Sam let him. Sam let his brother stagger his way through the bar, seemingly blind on one side, because the girls those vamps had been talking to were gone, because people were in danger, because the numbers added up.

_**Hunt + evil sons of bitches + people in danger > Sam + Dean + fighting + everything else** _

Their dad had taught them well, Sam thought, as he and Dean piled into the car, heading back toward the nest. The hunt trumps everything else and the numbers don’t lie.

No matter how much is gut screamed something else.

-SPN-

It did not go as planned.

_**(Dean x migraine) + (Sam x anger x mistrust) + (0 x people who have their head in the game) = things not ending well** _

On top of the fact that there were no civilians involved, that the vampires had apparently just decided to have an early night, there was also the fact that these vampires had decided to light their hay-filled barn of a nest with fucking candles, and the fact that Dean had fucking aura blinding him on one side. Which meant that as they burst into the ramshackle old building, machetes glinting in the light, Dean didn’t see a vamp coming at him from the right, let it knock him off balance, and he took down one of the lanterns with him, settling the whole fucking thing ablaze.

Dean made it back to his feet quickly, a spray of blood hissing over the flame as his knife found neck, but the damage was done. The rest of the fight was a blur of knives and blood and fire, shrieking and hissing and Dean being thrown across the small room, colliding with a disturbing crunch against the far wall, knocking down even more candles and generally making the situation worse.

Sam’s blade found five throats in quick succession on the way over to his brother. There were three bodies that Dean must’ve contributed, and Sam couldn’t see another moving creature around, a count which unfortunately included his brother.

“Dean!” He grabbed Dean’s shoulder, shook him hard. “Dean!”

And those green eyes blinked up at him, squinting against the light as his arms came up to cradle his head, the knife clattering to the packed-dirt floor.

“C’mon, Dean, c’mon, get up,” Sam ordered, tugging at Dean’s jacket, pulling at his arm, trying to haul his brother to his feet and Dean was just barely keeping up, only one misstep from being dragged, really, but they had to get out of here.

Sam swung Dean around and pushed him through the flaming doorway first, jumping out after him and landing hard on the cool earth outside.

“Dean! Dean, you okay? Dean!” Sam gasped, rolling toward his brother, but Dean was facing away from him, curling in on himself. Over the crack and smolder of the falling building, Sam could hear him gagging.

“Fuck, I fucking told you,” Sam said, but his voice was high and shrill and terrified, and Dean cringed at the sound, squeezing his eyes shut tight.

“We have to get out of here,” Sam said, trying to take charge. “Someone is going to see the smoke. We gotta get to the car.” But Dean wasn’t moving. Or he was, trying to push himself up to all fours, but his arms wouldn’t hold him, and he fell back against the ground, hand to his head, breathing hard.

“Okay, Dean, okay,” Sam murmured, uselessly, finding his feet and reaching for his brother. He hooked his hands under Dean’s arms and tugged his brother up to standing against his chest, arm wrapped around him in a ridiculous bear hug. “Can you walk? C’mon. We gotta go. Dean, c’mon.”

Dean stumbled along with him, his legs getting tangled in Sam’s longer ones, his soot-covered hair tickling Sam’s face. Sam kept an arm around Dean, propping his brother up against his chest as he fumbled for the door handle one-handedly. When he got the latch open, he pushed the door open with his hip, guided his brother down to sprawl across the bench seat as gently as he could. He gathered Dean’s legs up and deposited them in the foot well, shut the door gently behind him.

When he swung into the driver’s seat, he had to shift Dean’s arms, his head, trying to keep from crushing him. Dean ended up with the top of his head pressed to Sam’s thigh, his arms folded over his face blocking out the flickering light of the growing fire. Sam glanced at the seatbelt, thought about trying to buckle Dean in somehow, but then fuck it, and he threw an arm across Dean to keep him in place as he floored the gas pedal and they shot down the road.

“Fuck,” Sam breathed when he could no longer see the fire in the rearview. “Fuck, that almost was really bad.”

“Sammy.” It was so quiet, Sam almost missed it under the rumble of the Impala, the sound of the road, his own heart pounding in his ears. “Sammy, ‘m gonna…”

Sam pulled over as quick as he could, helped Dean sit up, pushed the passenger door open and held onto the back of Dean’s jacket as he hung out of the door, retching weakly. When he was done, Sam tugged the jacket a little harder to pull Dean back into the car, and Dean overbalanced, ended up sprawled across the seat again, head resting almost on Sam’s leg. Sam leaned across him to pull the door shut and then he kept driving.

They hadn’t ever stopped at a motel in this town, so their stuff was still piled in the trunk. Sam took the first on-ramp he saw, driving down the highway at three miles per hour over the speed limit because they couldn’t afford to be caught, not reeking of smoke and soaked in blood as they were. He drove for an hour, not counting the three breaks for Dean’s motion sickness, and then pulled into a motel three towns over from Idiotville. He left the car running, cool air turned on his brother as he checked them into a room.

He carried in their stuff and went back for Dean. Dean was still curled up on the seat, shaking and sweating, unable to open his eyes.

“Dean?” Sam whispered, and Dean flinched anyway. “It’s time to go in. Can you get up?”

Dean flailed a little but helped as much as he could, and between the two of them, they stumbled into the motel room, straight into the bathroom where Sam deposited his brother on the floor. Leaving Dean there for the moment, going back out to the room to lock the door, put down the salt lines, draw the curtains and turn the air conditioner down a couple of degrees. He turned on the light in the bedroom and re-entered the bathroom, where he left the lights off but the door cracked.

“Dean, hey,” Sam murmured and Dean finally cracked his eyes open just a tiny bit to look at his brother. “Hey. I’m gonna get you cleaned up, okay? Then drugs and bed. That sound good?”

“Don’t,” Dean ground out, pushing Sam’s hands away where he was trying to remove Dean’s jacket. “Leave me alone.”

“Would you just let me do this?” Sam snapped, forgetting to keep his voice down and Dean winced, swatting at Sam’s hands a little harder. Sam sighed and let go, giving Dean a shove that was a little more forceful than it had to be. “Fine. Fine. I’ll just call an ambulance and the hospital can deal with you. Is that what you want?”

“No,” Dean replied petulantly, and when Sam reached for him again, Dean didn’t resist. It was such a stupid little manipulation, but it worked, every fucking time, and Sam was grateful for it.

When Dean was stripped down to his boxers, Sam wet a cloth and began wiping away the blood and soot and sweat from Dean’s skin.

“I can do it myself,” Dean muttered, reaching for the cloth, so Sam let him have it, watching with raised eyebrows as Dean scrubbed forcefully at his face and neck and hands, even at his hair where the blood had congealed. Dean worked at it for a couple minutes, but when it was clear he didn’t have any fucks left to give, Sam took the cloth from his hands, finished the job, wondering all the while why it was that it was so much easier to handle Dean when he was hurt or sick or in pain than it was when he was just himself.

Sam turned out the bedroom light before helping Dean to his feet, taking a half step back when Dean said he could get to bed himself, hovering over him the entire way, just inches away in case Dean should stumble.

Dean collapsed on the bed, rolling onto his stomach and pulling a pillow over his head. He reached down and tugged ineffectually at his blankets, until Sam reached around and pulled them over him, tucking him in the way Dean had always done for him when he was sick.

Dean didn’t say anything about it, but Sam watched his shoulders relax incrementally and thought maybe Dean would let him do this.

Sam went to his duffle, dug out the prescription-labeled box, shaking out a packet of pills. Dean hated the migraine pills, said they made him fuzzy and off his game, what if something got in their room, how could he fight it off? He always refused to take them, suffering for days instead, and the last set of pills had expired years ago. But after the last migraine, after three days of watching his brother suffer, Sam had refilled them, kept them in his back, just in case.

“How about some drugs?” Sam asked, shaking a bottle of Tylenol lightly to cover the sound of punching the prescription out of the foil bubble.

“No,” Dean grumbled, barely audible.

“It’s just fucking Tylenol,” Sam said. “Are you really going to make me sit here and watch you be in pain for days because you’re too damn stubborn to swallow some damn pills?”

“You’re welcome to leave anytime,” Dean said, but without any real conviction. “I can find my own way back.”

“Fuck that,” Sam said. “Just take the pills, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

 _ **If**_ Dean says “leave” _**then**_ Sam stays _**because**_ that’s when Dean needs him.

He pushed the prescription tablets into Dean’s open hand, then watched them just sit there. “It’s just Tylenol,” he reiterated, and Dean closed his fist around the pills. Sam watched Dean’s hand disappear under the pillow, then reach back, empty, waiting for Sam to put a tumbler of water. He pushed himself up on one elbow just enough to take a sip of water, then pushed the glass back at Sam, collapsing back onto the mattress.

Sam grabbed the ice bucket and went to fill it at the machine down the hall. When he returned, he tied the plastic bag up tight at the top. He took a pillowcase off one of the pillows on his own bed, tucked the ice into it, then climbed onto the bed next to Dean.

“Sam?” Dean slurred, peeking out from under the pillow. “The fuck are you doing?”

“Shut up, Dean,” Sam murmured, and this time it sounded nice. He held up the bag of ice so Dean could see, then tucked it under the pillow, pressed to Dean’s forehead.

Dean sighed. “’S better,” he mumbled.

Sam reached over cautiously, tracing his fingers gently over the muscles of Dean’s neck, feeling the knots and tension even in the barest brush over the skin. Carefully, he began to knead gently at the base of Dean’s neck, trying to coax the taut muscle into relaxation.

“Sam? What’re you…?” Dean asked drowsily.

“Trying to fix it,” Sam said, hoping Dean knew he didn’t just mean the headache. “You should know. I learned this from you.”

Dean settled, letting Sam trick his muscles into believing they were loose and warm until they finally were. Sam listened to Dean breathe, waiting for him to fall asleep. And while he waited, Sam did a little more math.

Dean lied to Sam, tricked him. Dean put an angel into his body against his will to heal him when he didn’t want it.

Sam lied to Dean about the hospital. Tricked him about the pills. Sam put drugs in Dean’s body, against his will, to heal him when he didn’t want it.

Sam thought about deceit, about lies and secrets and little manipulations. He thought about omitting some words, twisting others. He thought about convincing Dean to do what needed to be done, all the things that Dean would not do for himself.

Sam loved the numbers. He could manipulate them to be whatever he wanted, to fit his mood and every whim. It helped him keep track of the world and where he fit in it. But sometimes he made mistakes. Like when he thought

_**Lies + secrets + anger ≠ brothers** _

There was another line to that set, an equation left unsolved.

 _ **If**_ it meant saving Sam’s life _**then**_ Dean would lie _**because**_ Sam is his brother.

Dean sighed in his sleep, inched closer to Sam, curling a couple of fingers into the tail of Sam’s shirt. Sam carded his fingers through Dean’s hair, and realized.

Sam would do the same thing. Same circumstances, he would.

 _ **If**_ it meant saving Dean’s life _**then**_ Sam would do anything _**because**_ Dean is his brother.


End file.
